Shin SOC News Thread (untouched by the unwashed)

Oh yeah baby....and since the KoG shares many of the same chassis details as the Led Mirage lets just go ahead and make the lead to a gold chrome diecast KoG to stand in front of that line of Led Mirages...

gingaio Wrote:
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>
> What's the deal with Nagano? Is he not cool with
> toys of his stuff being made?
>
> Lord knows we all suffered through that Kaiyodo
> figure. I remember ordering that toy the moment I
> heard about it...ah, such a piece of crap.

Apparently, Nagano was so offended by the handling of L-Gaim that he decided to be miserly when it came to handing out production rights for FSS...He insists it is all about maintaining the artistic integrity of his work, but it kind of feels like he has a stubborn grudge.

Sort of like, when I tell one of my students that they need to get busy on their artwork (which they think is finished) and that due dates do, indeed, mean something (despite the fact that the students always argue "you can't rush art"), and then they punish me by not doing their work because they are pouting.

Now don't get me wrong I love Nagano's work, but come on...Everybody knows that you build a larger fanbase with marketing, and nothing kills a fanbase faster than poor marketing...Which the Kaiyodo figures fall squarely in the middle of...I still have mine, but man are they bad...I can live with poor sculpt if the figure is super-articulated (revoltech), I can live with a figure that has a poor articulation but a great sculpt (Mcfarlane), but a poor sculpt and bad articulation (not to mention bad paint, which is inexcusable) is just a travesty. These figures just prove the theory that Nagano has a bone to pick with Bandai...We'll never see a Spec Led Mirage, but he allowed these pieces of poo to be manufactured...?

drifand Wrote:
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> Speaking of FFS, does anyone here really like the
> manga? I remember so impressed by the Hobby Japan
> pictorials as a wee lad, and then getting totally
> turned of by the wispy characters. :P

I really like the manga, and yes the visual style takes some getting used to. It is worth doing, in my opinion, because FSS is one of the most unique manga that exists. Convoluted, cryptic, epic, strange, and silly can all be used to describe FSS's plot. All that with giant robots...some of which are powerful enough to destroy planets...

I like the FSS manga too and bought all the Japanese volumes so far. Its not something for everyone. But its very good if you have the patience to sort out all the timeline, hundreds of characters' relationship & bloodline...kind of like reading a very long Sci-fi/fairy tale-ish history book, and you get a glimpse of the key events in the chapters of the manga. So you'll need a story guide book on the side as you read, knowing who is who from what era. Otherwise, you'll get very confused.

The only problem I have with it is being sooooooo slow, to a point it stopped having new chapters from time to time. Then Nagano might feel like picking it back up a few years later, then drew some more, then stopped again for another couple years... Though the story is not a continuous one with cliffhangers. It jumps back & forth through the some thousand years timeline, so even if he never goes back to draw more chapters from now on, you can still treat the series as complete as is.

Did they stop printing the English FSS manga? I know they were only available at Kinnokuniya, and were done by Nagano's publishing company, but it seems like they just stopped... I'm not sure if they just caught up to the Japanese volumes or what.

Has Nagano really been that harsh with his designs? Doesn't he have at least partial ownership of L-gaim, considering that he integrated that into FSS? And those toys are being made... I always just assumed that the ornate FSS designs were just too complex for a really good mass market toy to be made.

I tend to think that Nagano doesn't like his designs being change. Ever see HIS version of the ZZ Gundam? I think that might have been what said screw you to Gundam and then go on to create FSS. He did come back in 1998 and do the designs for Brain Powered.

What I want to know is if Gothic Made is still being produced?

Him and Makoto Kobayashi have been my favorite mecha designers for the past couple of years now.

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I asked if I have "Time For L-Gaim" but I got "No Reply From The Wind".

fujishig Wrote:
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> Did they stop printing the English FSS manga? I
> know they were only available at Kinnokuniya, and
> were done by Nagano's publishing company, but it
> seems like they just stopped... I'm not sure if
> they just caught up to the Japanese volumes or
> what.
>
> Has Nagano really been that harsh with his
> designs? Doesn't he have at least partial
> ownership of L-gaim, considering that he
> integrated that into FSS? And those toys are
> being made... I always just assumed that the
> ornate FSS designs were just too complex for a
> really good mass market toy to be made.

I haven't seen the FSS English comics for a long time, even though I frequent the Kinokuniya in my area. They might have stopped coming out with new ones long ago, and highly doubted they published up to where the Japanese manga stopped. There just aren't that many copies of those thin English ones, when each only covers a fraction of the Japanese's single volume.

When it comes to FSS toys, I don't think the designs are really too complicated for figures. They have been making injection plastic model kits of those for like a decade. So they could easily make an ABS action figure if they choose to. But they just never do (probably due to reasons related to questionable profit of doing so), and leave the franchise stay in the resin kit market. Its kind of like the Ma.K franchise, while having cool designs and collectors/modelers love them, they don't have a TV show or an on going media to keep them hyped enough to appeal to the general public as a mass production toy line. Though Ma.K did a bit better, with at least some Kubricks & and some figures from the past years.

Unless Bandai really want to surprise us, and do a SOC Knight Of Gold all of a sudden. :D With 18K gold no less, like they did with Gold Lightan.

Kaiyodo did do a small run of action figures in the late 90's. It looks like they had very limited articulation.
[www.hlj.com]

At my local Half Price Books, they have a ton of FSS english manga on the clearance rack. Other than that, I haven't seen any at my local Kinokuniya either.

Volks seems to be focusing on the Muv-Luv figures right now. There are so many great designs out there that never get their due, sad really. Not to come down on Votoms or Evas, but FSS mecha are a great source for remolds w/ slight modifications and color alterations.

I got my L-Gaim as well. To be honest I'm not sure what to think. It's not a bad figure, but I feel like it could have been better. A couple notable flaws are the leg articulation, which is lacking in the hip area. In addition, a fully-loaded "binder" shield is too heavy for the arm to hold up at the shoulder, making poses tricky. The buster launcher is massive and a little unweildy. The "power cables" are a pain to put in. The opening "random slates" on the legs are prone to falling off a bit more easily than I'd like.

Overall however it is not a bad figure. It's got a great, dynamic sculpt, feels solid, and is articulated enough to pull off some pretty dynamic poses. It has all of the accessories one would expect for the L-Gaim, and the included "Lilith-Gaim" model kit is very cute.

I can't really recommend this figure to gokin fans in general, but any serious fan of L-Gaim should be happy with the figure.

I didn't like the way it looked before. Torso looked too broad and the head looked too small. Looks a lot better to me now. Fucking awesome in fact. Not sure if that's because they actually changed some things or I was just being a picky bastard before.